


Blue Skies and Satellites

by telm_393



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Ableism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anxiety, Brain Damage, Chronic Illness, Depression, Disability, F/M, Family Feels, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, On Hiatus, Panic Attacks, Past Child Abuse, Past Child Death, Past Kidnapping, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Violence, Past childhood sexual abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychosis, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-03 19:59:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4113082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telm_393/pseuds/telm_393
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max Rockatansky’s lost a lot, so much that he’s only got one person left to lose: his troubled eleven year old adopted son Nux. It's been hard to find a place to settle down, but Max is determined that the town of Citadel is going to be where they stay. He counted on he and Nux continuing their difficult, isolated existence together, trying as best as they can to have a good life anyway. He didn’t count on he and Nux making a connection with their neighbor Furiosa and her five adopted daughters.</p><p>And Furiosa definitely didn't count on it either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for this http://madmaxkink.dreamwidth.org/450.html?thread=449730 kink meme prompt. Basically, it asked for Max as Nux's dad and Furiosa as the wives's mom. It has gotten out of control.
> 
> As you can tell from the tags, this deals with a lot of the same thematic elements as the movie. Everyone has had a rough time, is what I'm saying, and that's a really important part of this fic.
> 
> Chapter length will probably fluctuate from 1,500-3,000 words depending on the chapter. I'm gonna tell you upfront that updates will be erratic, though there will definitely be more than one chapter--probably three at the least--posted a month. 
> 
> I hope someone likes this!

Nux is asleep when Max pulls into the driveway of the new house. The place is practically falling apart, but Max expected that, considering how cheap the rent is. It’ll be fine. It’s nothing special, but it’s nicer than the other places he and Nux have lived at over the past four years. He just has to child proof it—Nux-proof it, rather—before the child protection bloke comes around next week. Shouldn’t be a problem.

Max looks over at Nux and sighs. Of course the kid’s dead asleep, he was practically bouncing off of the walls today and yesterday, excited about the move, excited about finally getting away from the kids that wandered around town who were from his old school and looked at him sideways and whispered about him. He’d lasted seven months at school in Vault before he got expelled. A record.

Max couldn’t blame Nux for what had finally gotten him kicked out. He even felt viciously proud of the kid for it, because he’d seen Nux come home upset one too many times to feel anything but vague amusement at the fact that Nux had broken some bully’s nose.

Besides, by the time Nux got expelled Max was already making plans to move out of that town anyway.

Max had had a job at an auto repair shop, but it hadn’t worked out for the same old reasons none of his jobs ever worked out after the police, and he knew he wasn’t going to last after the thousandth time he’d had to stay home from work. He’d quit before he could get sacked and spun the unemployment to child protection so that it wouldn’t sound like he was too fucked in the head to hold down a job, he’d just decided to stop working because he had enough money to live comfortably for ages anyway—even though he doesn’t like thinking about how he got that money, the things that happened Before Nux—and he wanted to be a stay at home dad to his sick kid.

That part was true anyway. Max feels uncomfortable leaving Nux alone for too long. The kid’s only eleven anyway, and he _is_ sick, hospital stays and blood transfusions and oxygen tanks in the closet sick, not to mention all the things going on in his head that the doctors keep fighting about, and Max doesn’t want to take away time from his most important job anymore. He’s going to keep at least this child alive as long as possible.

The other mechanics were mediocre anyway. ( _Mediocre_ , one of Nux’s favorite words. _Mediocre_ and _shiny_ and _chrome_.)

Max stares at the house for a good long while. This move is important. This one has to work out, they’re already on thin ice with child protection because of all the moving. Max is a single dad to a severely disabled child that he’d mostly just been given permission to adopt by a stroke of luck, and he’s hanging by a thread. He can’t fuck this one up. He’ll get a tutor for Nux if worst comes to worst. “No more moving,” he’d promised Nux and child protection, and he’s going to keep that promise.

The neighborhood doesn’t look like it’s got too many people, even though he figures that the house just next door must have at least a few, considering the huge clunker of a car in the driveway. Most of the houses aren’t as run down as his new one, but that’s probably because his neighbors have actually worked on their houses to get them into shape. Maybe Max will do that. He’s good with his hands, and he needs something to do while Nux is at school.

Nux is starting school in a couple of weeks, enough time for Max to get him ready, hopefully, and to stress how important it is that he not get kicked out this time. They’ve given up on having him go to any of the mainstream classes, so he’s going to be in the special education room most of the day. Nux doesn’t like the idea too much and neither does Max, but hopefully this’ll mean that serious issues can be stopped before they start, and Nux might have less contact with potential bullies. Maybe he’ll actually make some friends if he’s around more kids like him.

Though if special education here turns out to be anything like the classes at the first school Max sent Nux to, Max’s going to break some skulls. Not literally.

Max presses his wrist against Nux’s forehead. No fever as far as he can tell. Good.

Max feels tired, like he could just sleep here in his car like he has so many times before, but he gets out of the car and goes over to the passenger seat, opening the door and unbuckling Nux's seatbelt and picking him up.

Eleven years old and still small and light enough for Max to carry without breaking a sweat, even with his leg. No wonder so many people are shocked to hear that Nux is over ten. Nux insists that someday he’ll have a growth spurt, someday he’ll be tall, and Max figures stranger things have happened.

Nux automatically clings to Max, and Max walks inside the house. The place is furnished. Max made sure. There’s not much there. A dining room table, some kitchen supplies, a couch. Both bedrooms have beds. The room Max is putting Nux up in is tiny, but Nux won’t mind. He likes small spaces, which has given Max no end of grief, what with the kid liking to curl up under beds and behind couches and in closets.

Max is glad that Nux is going to be knocked out for a few hours yet, because he’d just be underfoot for the unpacking. They don’t have much, just a couple of big suitcases, one small one, and a few boxes. They barely fit in and on top of Max’s car, but they made it. Nux’s portable oxygen is in the backseat and Max lugs it in and puts it in one of the closets, easily accessible in an emergency but hidden from sight. He’ll tell Nux where it is later, but neither of them like to see it lying around.

Nux used to need it most nights, but now it’s usually just for when the shortness of breath becomes something dangerous.

Max puts Nux’s pill bottles in the medicine cabinet and then puts his own pill bottles under them. He’s never liked meds much, but they help him keep Nux and that’s enough for him to keep taking them and keep going to the damn psychologist and psychiatrist.

He’s going to have to wake Nux up later to give him his evening pills. Nux hates them, but he doesn’t fight them anymore, and he’s no longer completely convinced that they’re poisonous, which is a victory in Max’s book. Besides, convincing Nux that his pills weren’t poisonous helped convince Max that his own pills weren’t poisonous.

Max unpacks the little that they have, shoving his and Nux’s clothes into their respective closets, putting some books on the bookshelf, which stays mostly empty (they should probably get more books, even if it’s just for appearances). He’s got to go get groceries soon, but he’ll do that later, when Nux is awake and can come with him, though he mostly just ends up wanting a bunch of different kinds of food that may or may not land him in the hospital. Nux isn’t a picky eater, which is actually too bad, since that might've helped him not mind his limited diet too much.

Max goes over to his bed and lies down, staring up at the ceiling. He’s tired, but he’d rather not sleep. Sleep means nightmares half the time anyway. He and Nux make quite a pair, with their constant nightmares and matching diagnoses of PTSD. Besides, he’s no good at getting to sleep in the first place, no matter how tired he is, so he prefers to do things that are actually useful in place of lying in his bed, getting frustrated that he can’t fucking sleep.

Sometimes, though. Sometimes he just has to lie in bed for a while. Not sleeping, not doing anything, just feeling the heaviness in his chest pressing down on him and trying not to think so that he can keep the memories, the voices, the visions away.

He can’t spend as much time just lying in bed as he used to, though. Some days it’s impossible to get up, with his limbs like lead and his cold sweats soaking his body and his breathing making him wish he had portable oxygen, but most of the time he does, because he’s got a job to do. He’s got a kid to take care of, to protect, and like hell he’s going to add another child to the pantheon of ghosts haunting him.

Besides, he loves that kid. He never thought he could love a kid again, never thought he could even love another living being again, he was too busy loving the dead, but then he met Nux, recognized him, knew him right away even with the wounds on his face scarred over. And Nux, despite all the memory problems he’s turned out to have, recognized him too. “Blood Bag!” he’d said brightly, and Max hadn’t been able to leave him alone, not again.

Hours tick by, and Max looks at the digital clock on his bedside table. Late. Nux has to take some meds. Max has to take some meds. And they have to go grocery shopping.

Max gets up from bed, ignoring the way he’s aching because ignoring pain is one of his specialties, and takes a deep breath, trying to get some oxygen into his lungs, his brain. He’s good at breathing deep at this point. He’s helped Nux with it enough, and besides, his psychologist taught him ways to calm himself. Cliches, really, take deep breaths, count to ten, but they work well enough sometimes.

Max goes to the bathroom, pops a couple of pills, pours the pills that Nux needs into a paper cup, gets some water, and heads to Nux’s room downstairs and shakes him awake. “Hey,” he says. “Get up.”

Nux’s eyes open slowly and then he stares at Max, straight into his eyes—Nux has the most unnerving eye contact Max’s ever seen—and says, “Hi.”

“Hi. Come on. We’re getting food.” While Max says it he hands Nux the pills and water, and Nux makes a face but gamely swallows them and then, when Max taps his jaw, opens his mouth to show Max that he's actually swallowed all his pills.

“Are we gonna explore the town?”

“Maybe tomorrow,” Max says. “Right now we need food.”

Nux nods and smiles. He’s mostly teeth, but Max can see his gums. They’re a bit too red, but not bleeding. Not bad.

Nux scrambles out of bed and runs out the door at full speed.

Max rolls his eyes. Even when that boy can barely stand up, he’ll try to move constantly.

Nux is, unsurprisingly, already in the car when Max goes outside, and Max gets into the driver’s seat and he must be lost in his head for a while, because what feels like a second later, Nux is jostling him. “Max?” he asks. “Are you alive?”

Max smiles slightly. “Yeah. Still alive.”

Nux grins at him, and then is distracted by the sound of the huge car next door pulling out of the driveway.

“Wow, look at that car! Shiny!”

The car’s not actually shiny at all. It’s pretty beat up, to be honest, but Max just nods. “Shiny,” he agrees, as his own car rumbles to life.


	2. Sustenance

It’s always an event, going grocery shopping with the girls. Furiosa hears them talking in the backseat, bickering and laughing and singing little songs to Cheedo, trying to make her smile. It’s a game among the girls, trying to make each other smile. 

(Trying to make Furiosa smile, too.)

And they do smile more these days, all of them, even Cheedo, who’s only been a member of the family for a handful of months. Furiosa remembers each and every one of them when they were new, their solemn eyes and the exhausted downturn of their mouths. The way Angharad would stare out of the window all day, watching the horizon, waiting for something, somebody, to come and take her away. The way Capable would lie on the floor like her limbs were too heavy to hold her up. The way The Dag would hide under her bed and hum to herself. The way that Toast would stare at all of them with naked distrust. The way that Cheedo would cry all the time, cry and scream when anyone but Toast or Dag got too close to her.

She still spends a lot of time crying, but she doesn’t scream when any of them approach her, not anymore. Instead she smiles and opens her arms, asks to be carried. She’s small. She’s seven years old, but her growth was stunted at some point. None of them are really sure what happened to her, they just know that Toast found her sleeping next to a dumpster, each breath wheezing in and out of her chest, and gathered her up and brought her home. 

Furiosa hadn’t been planning to adopt another child, but the girls couldn’t stand to see Cheedo given up to the system, and neither could she. Not the little girl with the sweet smile and clear laugh and gentle touch. 

So Cheedo is one of them now, and she fits in perfectly. Furiosa knows that she’s never going to adopt another child—five was already enough for child services to hem and haw over it, only letting her adopt Cheedo because the other girls Furiosa adopted were far more well-adjusted than anyone thought they’d ever be and she was a former social worker—but she’s fine with that. More than fine with that, considering that the adoption of every single one of the girls wasn’t something she’d planned, she never thought she’d be a mother when she was younger, never thought she’d want to, even though now she’d die for them in a second.

Cheedo is giggling in the backseat when Furiosa pulls into the parking lot of the supermarket. It’s the one they always go to, though they don’t always bring Cheedo, who is easily frightened by going out in public, but she’d wanted to go and Furiosa had been pleased. It’s good for her to get out of the house. 

Angharad helps Cheedo out of the car as the other girls hop out. Cheedo’s still fragile, too thin and tired for a little girl, and everyone tends to fuss over her a little. Granted, they all fuss over each other, but they absolutely dote on Cheedo. It makes sense, of course, because if there’s something that girl needs it’s some affection. 

Furiosa runs her hand over Cheedo’s hair and Cheedo smiles up at her and takes her hand. 

They walk into the store. It’s late to be shopping, so there aren’t many people, but the place is big and the lights are punishingly bright and there are people milling around. Cheedo stops cold, tugging on Furiosa’s hand. “I wanna go home,” she whispers. 

“We can’t,” Furiosa says. “We just got here and we need to buy food.”

Cheedo whimpers and buries her face against Furiosa’s pant leg, and then Angharad walks over and kneels down next to her. 

“Come on,” she says. “You can’t stay at home all day. I’ll stay with you, okay? It’ll be fine, we’re just going to walk around and get some stuff and then we’ll go back home. We’ll help Furiosa with the shopping.”

Cheedo detaches herself from Furiosa’s leg and takes Angharad’s hand instead. “Okay,” she murmurs, and Angharad smiles and stands up.

Toast and Dag have already disappeared, and Furiosa rolls her eyes. Of course they have. Capable has stayed next to her at least, because Capable, just like Cheedo, is another one of the girls who delights in being helpful. 

Furiosa scans the supermarket, figuring out which places to hit first, what to get, and then she nods to herself, satisfied, and says, “We’re going to the produce section first.”

Capable nods and takes off with the trolley, walking with purpose, Furiosa walking next to her and Cheedo and Angharad speaking to each other quietly. Cheedo giggles and Furiosa looks over her shoulder to see that Angharad’s picked Cheedo up and is now carrying her on one hip. Cheedo happily clings to her, watching the others in the store with interest, probably feeling safer doing that now that she’s in Angharad’s arms. 

Stronger than she looks, Angharad.

Capable’s contemplating some apples when Furiosa hears footsteps on the tiled floor, somebody running. Not even jogging, running. 

“Slow down!” someone else calls out, a broad, well-muscled man with a gruff voice and tired eyes.

The person who was running, who Furiosa can see is a child—she guessed it from the footsteps anyway—skids to a halt in front of some grapefruits and picks one up, tossing it from hand to hand. The kid’s skinny and completely bald, wearing a loose t-shirt and black cargo shorts. 

The man walks over to him.

“We should get one of these!” the kid says to the man, turning around to face him, giving Furiosa a look at his face. Big blue eyes. Scars. Maybe nine years old, maybe older with stunted growth like Cheedo. Furiosa would bet anything that the man with him isn’t his biological father.

The man snorts and shakes his head, taking the grapefruit from the boy’s hands and putting it back. “That’ll kill me.”

The boy’s face falls. “Oh. Right.”

“Look, Angharad,” Cheedo whispers. “He’s got his face all cut up like you.”

Angharad hums in agreement. “Don’t stare, it’s rude.”

Capable’s still looking at the apples, putting some in a bag, and Furiosa goes over to get some zucchini, putting the man and the boy out of her mind. Capable keeps shooting looks at the boy, who finally looks back at her, his stare wide-eyed and disconcerting. Capable, however, doesn’t seem at all disconcerted, she just smiles a little. The boy smiles back, a little twitchily, and then runs away into some other aisle. 

The man lets out a sighs and calls out, “Walk!”

The boy calls out, “Okay!” from wherever he’s disappeared to, and the man’s lips curve upwards into something like a smile for a second as he looks at produce.

“Got the fruit,” Capable announces. “Do you have the vegetables?”

“Obviously,” Furiosa says, dumping the bags of vegetables into the trolley. 

“You’ll bruise them!” Capable says, displeased, and Furiosa just claps her on the shoulder as she keeps walking. They’re on a mission, here. Coffee, tea, bread, meat, cereal, milk, juice.

Easy.

Toast and Dag are still wandering around, but occasionally they catch up to Furiosa and dump something in the trolley. Most of the time it’s something ridiculous like vodka, and Furiosa puts it back. None of the girls are even very interested in drinking, she doesn’t know why Toast puts something heavily alcoholic in every time. 

Dag decides that she wants another one of those damn plants that eats bugs, Furiosa can never remember the name, and Furiosa puts it back seven times before she resigns herself to buying it for Dag’s collection. 

“Iron supplements,” someone’s muttering when Furiosa walks into the vitamins aisle. It’s the man that she saw earlier, the boy hanging off of his arm and practically vibrating with pent-up energy. “Vitamin D. What else are we missing?” he asks as he dumps the iron supplements into the trolley that surprisingly has much more healthy food than Furiosa’s.

“Iron supplements,” the boy says.

“No, just got those, Nux.”

“Oh. Um…B-12.”

“Right,” the man mutters. 

“Max,” the boy—Nux, apparently—says as Furiosa finds Vitamin D supplements. “Can we get ice cream?”

“No dairy.”

“What if it doesn’t have dairy?”

“Then get it.”

“Okay,” the boy says, taking off at a run.

“Walk,” Max says, and Nux skids to a stop and then continues at a more sedate pace.

Furiosa smirks to herself and puts a couple of bottles of vitamins in the cart as Capable, Angharad, and Cheedo catch up to her. 

“We’re done,” Furiosa says, satisfied with what they have. “Find Dag and Toast, we’re heading home.”

Before Furiosa follows the girls out of the aisle, she turns to look at Max. He’s looking back, and she gives him a small nod. He inclines his head and turns away from her, and she goes to pay and get her girls. Capable has managed to round up Dag and Toast, and she grins at Furiosa. 

Furiosa smiles back and puts her hand on the back of Capable’s head, propelling them both forward. She pays. The cashier doesn’t try to chat with her anymore, just smiles and tells her to have a nice day, probably put off by the fact that Furiosa mostly stays completely silent in response to any attempt at small talk.

The car’s still moving when Toast gets out, but it’s going slow enough—just pulling into the driveway—that Furiosa doesn’t reprimand her for it. 

A half hour later, Cheedo shrieks from the living room, which brings everybody in to make sure she’s okay, until Furiosa thinks back and realizes that it was a shriek of excitement. Cheedo’s staring out the window, and Angharad and Dag both peer around her, looking at what’s got her excited. 

It’s Max and Nux from the store. 

So those are the new neighbors.

“I saw them before!” Cheedo says happily. “We should say hi! We should make cookies, that’s what they do on TV.”

Furiosa’s not sure how their new neighbors will respond to cookies, but she’s not about to tell Cheedo not to do something that she not only actually seems excited about doing, but that actually involves interacting with people not within her family. 

So Furiosa says, “Sure. Good idea.”


	3. Visit

Nux is taking a nap and Max doesn’t have a damn thing to do, so he’s sitting on the front steps of his house and watching the street even though there’s nothing happening out there. His head is surprisingly quiet, and he’s thankful for the reprieve from his brain’s bullshit. Max looks over at their neighbor’s house. It’s got a small but well-built porch (someone knew what they were doing, building that) and a well-tended garden. Somebody over there has a green thumb. He knows who occupies the house by now, saw the woman and her brood in the supermarket. He and Nux have never lived next to another family (if what he and Nux are can really be termed a family in any kind of traditional sense), but Max figures that what they’ll do is stay out of each other’s way. That’s always been Max’s M.O. when it comes to neighbors, no matter what.

Nux is more curious about other people, but sometimes he just seems intimidated by them, almost shy. Sometimes he’ll talk a total stranger’s ear off, and sometimes he’ll literally run away from them. He’s fascinated by people and scared of them at the same time. It’s easier when he’s with Max, when he can feel protected. Max knows Nux is completely sure Max’ll never let him come to harm, and Max tries not to do anything to ruin that illusion.

It’s not too much of an illusion, he tells himself. He’d die if it means protecting Nux, though he knows that dying wouldn’t really help anyone at all. So he’ll _live_ for Nux, which is something. Which is everything, really.

“Hey,” a voice says, calling over from the front yard next door. Max turns his head slowly, and there’s the woman, there’s his neighbor. Shaved head, rigid posture. Nice looking, he guesses. “I’ve gotta talk to you.”

Max furrows his brow, wondering what he could’ve done to make her want to talk to him. She looks at him steadily, must be waiting for him to do something, respond, so Max nods slowly. _Yeah?_

“One of my girls, the youngest, she wants to make you cookies and bring them over.”

Max furrows his brow. “Yeah?”

The woman’s mouth twists into a half-smile. “She saw you guys at the supermarket, then she saw we were neighbors, and then she wanted to make cookies because it’s what people do on TV.”

Max lets out a huff of air that might be a laugh. Of course. Little kids do stuff like that, watch other people and figure that’s how things are supposed to be. Sometimes it’s a problem, sometimes it’s not. Here it’s not, but he still has to clarify some things. Doesn’t want Nux getting sick because of an act of kindness. “What kind of cookies?”

“Chocolate chip, the usual. It’ll be made from a batter we bought, Cheedo’s seven, she doesn’t know how to bake from scratch, and neither do the older girls. And I definitely don’t.”

“Sure. That’ll probably work better anyway. Less likely to get contaminated. Hm. Don’t undercook. Actually, burn the cookies a bit, just to be safe. Yeah?”

“No problem, I’ll tell them. My name’s Furiosa Greene. You?”

“Hm. Max Rockatansky, uh-huh.”

“Well, the girls are getting out of school soon, I’m gonna have to pick them up. Yours going to school?”

“Few weeks.”

Furiosa nods. “See you around.”

Max grunts and nods in response, and then goes back to looking out at the street. There’s a lot of dust and dirt. He scans his front yard. It’s mostly a little wasteland, with yellow grass and no trees. He should try building a porch, since it’ll give him something to do. He and Nux probably won’t go for a garden, though, he’s pretty sure everything would end up dead and that’d just be depressing.

He should go back inside soon, check the time. He doesn’t have a wristwatch, doesn’t have a reason to have one when there’s a perfectly good digital clock on the microwave that’s only a couple minutes off. It’s hot out, but he doesn’t really mind, even though sweat’s sticking his shirt to his back. He’s wearing his leather jacket, and he probably shouldn’t be. It’ll just overheat him, but he doesn’t even notice. He’s good at not noticing the weather, just wearing what he wants to wear and letting things be. He doesn’t have a lot of clothes anyway, and he always feels vulnerable to attack when he doesn’t wear his jacket.

He knows that’s probably not right, that it’s just hyper vigilance or whatever the fuck his psychologist calls it. He still feels better with his jacket on.

“Time to go inside,” he mutters to himself, so he gets up and he does. He goes up to Nux’s room first, to check on him and if he’s still sleeping.

He’s not, but he’s crashing toy cars into the wall of his room, not really doing much moving or anything, so Max figures he doesn’t have to watch him. He just smiles a bit when Nux doesn’t notice him standing in the doorway and walks over to the kitchen to make something to eat. Max isn’t a great cook, he’s not even a good cook, but he can still make meals that won’t get Nux sick and follow the neutropenic diet the doctor set out a while back.

“Brown rice,” he mutters as he takes the bag of it out of the cabinet with “grains” posted on it, Nux’s blocky handwriting on a blank page. “Legumes,” he says as he takes out some of those big red beans, he forgets what they’re called, out and lets the bag plop onto the counter. He opens the refrigerator and keeps muttering to himself as he digs around for fruits and vegetables. “Carrots, broccoli, apples,” he murmurs as he places them all on a cutting board.

It’s easy, really, washing and peeling all the vegetables and fruit, cooking everything. He’s good at all that by now.

“Nux!” he calls when everything’s ready. “Lunch!”

He calls it meal three in his head, but it’s easier for Nux to just remember it as lunch. Breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner. Max just counts. One, two, three, four, five.

Nux is in the kitchen in no time at all, skidding to a halt in front of the table and sitting down even though he’s still bouncing and squirming all over the place as he spears a little piece of broccoli with his fork. Max cuts everything into small pieces. Nux isn’t much good at cutting, everything ends up all over the place because of his shaking. Some of it is the way he’s always vibrating with pent-up energy, some of it’s just because of his tremors and shit motor skills.

Nux chatters about the dream he had when he eats. Max listens, nodding. Nux always has strange dreams, nightmares or no, but clearly this one wasn’t a nightmare, which is nice. Max likes listening to Nux talk.

“…And then the bees all went to school with me and protected me from the other kids,” Nux says, and Max smiles.

The doorbell rings, and both Nux and Max start. Nux is more obvious about it, he nearly falls off his chair and Max reaches out absentmindedly to steady him.

“What do we do?” Nux asks, wide eyed.

“Well,” Max says, pretending to be pensive. “I guess we should answer the door.”

Nux nods and springs up from his chair, tugging on Max’s jacket so that he’ll stand up too. Max thinks he knows who it is. It was kind of Furiosa to mention that they would have visitors today.

He and Nux make their way to the door and open it and are faced with two girls, a teenager and a little one. The sight of the little one makes Max’s chest twist, and he smiles down at her softly. She smiles shyly back at him. She’s holding a plate of cookies, burnt at the edges. Good.

“Hello,” the older one says. She’s a pretty girl, someone who could be called statuesque, all angles. She has scars on her face, clusters of raised white lines on her forehead and one of her cheeks.

Max hopes Nux doesn’t mention them, but honestly, at least he has visible scars on his face too, so maybe she’ll find it less offensive.

Nux is still hanging onto Max’s jacket, looking curiously at the girls.

“Hello,” Max says.

“Um,” the little girl says. “I…I’m Cheedo. And this is Splendid.”

“Angharad,” the older girl says. “Most people call me Angharad.”

Max nods, and then looks down at Nux. “Wanna say hi?” he asks.

“Hi,” Nux mutters. “I’m Nux.”

“Pleased to meet you, Nux,” Angharad says kindly. “How are you?”

“Alive,” Nux says cheerfully.

“Well, that’s always a good start.”

Max is honestly pretty impressed. Most people are put off by Nux’s normal answer to that question.

“What’s your name?” Cheedo asks, looking up at Max. Her brown hair’s long and glossy, and her big eyes remind Max a bit of—anyway.

“Max,” he says.

“We brought cookies,” Cheedo says gravely. “They’re chocolate chip.”

Nux grins. “Yay!” he says. “That’s nice. Usually our neighbors don’t talk to us very much. But you’re our neighbors and you’re talking to us, which is nice.”

Cheedo beams and holds out the plate of cookies, covered in plastic wrap. “Here!”

Max takes them and nods down at her, the tilt of his head feeling awkward. “Thanks.”

Cheedo and Angharad both smile, and then Cheedo takes Angharad’s hand and Angharad says, “We’d best be going. We just wanted to say hello.”

“Hello!” Nux chirps, and Angharad grins and waves goodbye.

Max closes the door to their backs and sighs, looking down at the cookies. “You can have one when you finish your lunch,” he tells Nux, and Nux lights up and runs over to the table and starts shoveling food in his mouth. He doesn’t get sweets very often.

The cookies are crunchy and overly sweet and taste a bit like ashes.

Nux loves them.

He takes his meds, goes to sleep, and seems to manage to sleep soundly, from what Max sees when he wanders by the room and pushes the door open a little and looks in.

Max doesn’t sleep soundly. He dreams in snatches of laughter and screaming, in voices and visions, and he wakes up too early.

He spends the next day wandering around the kitchen, making food mechanically, humming at whatever Nux is talking about and quietly relieved when he goes to play.

Max goes out into the yard and sits on the steps again.

One of the girls is outside, tending to the garden. She’s probably almost a teenager, and she’s got long, tangled white blonde hair. She looks at him, cocks her head, and sticks out her tongue.

He gives her a brief wave and turns back to the street.

Max pulls his jacket tighter around himself.

It’s hot, it’s really hot. He doesn’t know how long he’s outside, long enough that the girl’s gone in.

 _Where are you?_  a high, reedy voice asks. _Where are you, Max?_

Max looks over and there she is, her tangled brown hair, her big eyes. He recoils and puts up his hands in front of his face protectively as she jumps at him, arms out, fingers curled like she’s going to claw at him.

“You okay?” someone asks, and Max starts and looks around wildly, his eyes finally landing on Furiosa.

“Oh,” he says, and then he looks down and nods. “Mhm.”

“How’s your kid?” she asks.

“Good. Yours?”

“Good. You two on your own?”

Max looks at her appraisingly. He guesses it’s fine to answer, so he shrugs and grunts his assent.

“I’m a single parent too. More of a guardian. Not like the girls call me mom or anything, they were all adopted at seven or older, y’know.”

“Nux was seven,” Max offers. “When I, yeah, adopted him.”

Furiosa nods. “Weird, I haven’t ever met other single adoptive parents. Not in a town this size.”

“Me neither. Not in any town.”

Furiosa nods and then goes silent. So does Max, even though he stands up. He can hear Nux running through the house, and then, sure enough, the kid’s out like a shot. Max grabs him around the middle and manages to pick him up and balance him on his hip in a pretty fluid motion. Fluid for him, at least. For them.

Nux squawks in protest, but then he catches Furiosa’s eye.

She raises an eyebrow regally and almost smiles. Well, her mouth does something to acknowledge Nux at least. Max understands. You’re supposed to smile at children, but smiles take too much work sometimes.

“Ma- _ax_ ,” Nux whines, looking away from Furiosa. “Let me go.”

“How long’ve you been running around?”

“I dunno. A lot.”

“Slow down, then. Any bruises or bleeding?”

“Nope, I’m okay. Well, a couple of bruises maybe, but I don’t know where they came from.”

“Do you ever?” Max grumbles softly and probably unintelligibly.

Nux looks at Furiosa again, right into her eyes. She stares back evenly.

“You,” Nux announces, “don’t have hair.”

“Jesus,” Max mumbles under his breath.

Furiosa looks vaguely amused. “True,” she agrees.

“Me neither,” Nux says, even though it’s pretty obvious. “Did your hair fall out too?”

“No,” Furiosa says. “I shaved my head.”

Nux nods gravely. “Looks chrome,” he says, and then he kicks at Max. “Put me down!”

“Fine, but be careful, yeah? Don’t run into the street, and if you get out of breath, rest.”

“Okay.”

Max puts Nux down and Nux immediately goes over to a patch of dead grass and flops down. Max grimaces. That’s going to bruise.

“Lost his hair?” Furiosa asks, and Max’s attention goes back to her.

He knows what she’s asking.

_Does he have cancer?_

No.

Max shakes his head before remembering that Furiosa asked a different question than the one she meant, and he says, “Alopecia. It’s an autoimmune thing. He’s, mmm, got autoimmune things.”

_Not cancer._

Furiosa nods like she understands, and says, “So he’s okay.”

Max shrugs and says, “All things considered.”


End file.
